fellow feeling

• fellow-feeling

fellow feeling (usually uncountable, plural fellow feelings)

1. A sense of sympathy for, consideration of, or shared interests with one or more other human beings.
   • 1817, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, chapter 2, in Biographia Literaria:

     [I]s the character and property of the man, who labours for our intellectual pleasures, less entitled to a share of our fellow feeling, than that of the wine-merchant or milliner?

   • 1857, Herman Melville, chapter 43, in The Confidence Man:

     "[H]ow kindly we reciprocate each other's little delicacies, don't we? What better proof, now, that we are kind, considerate fellows, with responsive fellow-feelings—eh, barber?"

   • 1917, John Galsworthy, chapter 15, in Beyond:

     But, mixed with her rage, a sort of unwilling compassion and fellow feeling kept rising for that girl, that silly, sugar-plum girl, brought to such a pass by—her husband.

   • 2002, Robert Sullivan, "Week One: A Warm Winter Olympics," Time, 16 Feb.:

     Even when the wind blew cold, the fine sportsmanship and fellow feeling that is traditional to the Winter Games, lifted last week to an absurd height by the love-everybody snowboarders, the new let's do-right IOC and the continuing sympathy for the U. S. of A., was lovely to see — and to join.

• empathy